Resistance by Jennifer A. Nielsen, 2018

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Chaya Lindner is a teenager living in Nazi-occupied Poland. Simply being Jewish places her in danger of being killed or sent to the camps. After her little sister is taken away, her younger brother disappears, and her parents all but give up hope, Chaya is determined to make a difference. Using forged papers and her fair features, Chaya becomes a courier and travels between the Jewish ghettos of Poland, smuggling food, papers, and even people.

Soon Chaya joins a resistance cell that runs raids on the Nazis' supplies. But after a mission goes terribly wrong, Chaya's network shatters. She is alone and unsure of where to go, until Esther, a member of her cell, finds her and delivers a message that chills Chaya to her core, and sends her on a journey toward an even larger uprising in the works -- in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Though the Jewish resistance never had much of a chance against the Nazis, they were determined to save as many lives as possible, and to live -- or die -- with honor.

(400 pages)

Wow.

Just, wow. I mean, I've been a fan of Nielsen's for ages, and I adored her East Berlin book A Night Divided, so I knew going in that I was going to love Resistance. But I had no idea how blown away by it I was going to be.

World War II is pretty well-trodden ground by this point, but Nielsen still managed to find an aspect–the Jewish resistance movement–that I didn't know anything about. I never knew that the Jews worked so hard to organize themselves and fight against the Nazis, but they did. They were incredibly brave, risking their lives every day to undermine the war effort, warn the people imprisoned in ghettos about the death camps, and smuggle some out into safe houses.

Chava and her fellow fighters know from day one that they will most likely die for their cause, but they know that they will face death no matter what they do–they want to use their lives to do the most good before they are killed, either for fighting or for being Jewish. It's a horrible situation, the ultimate "rock and a hard place" dilemma, and they are beyond brave for choosing to do what they can to help.

I love how Nielsen doesn't just leave it at that, though. Over the course of Chaya and Esther's journey, they meet lots of different people from all walks of life and religion. They meet some Poles who ignore them, others who attack them for being Jewish, and still others who risk life and limb to help them. They meet some Jews who refuse to fight back out of fear, and some who don't fight out of disbelief, but also some who won't fight because their faith forbids murder–so they fight for the Jewish religion by not taking up arms. Nielsen's focus on these moral nuances, on portraying the various ways people responded to the Nazis without judging them, is a great strength throughout the book.

I realize I haven't really discussed the main characters much yet. It's hard to focus on them when there are so many incredible details about history to pull from Resistance's pages, but Chava is the perfect core to the book. She doesn't see herself as a hero, and she doesn't romanticize anything. She is a very pragmatic person, treating herself almost like an object and calculating how best to use herself for the good of the Jews and downfall of the Nazis. Her initial impatience with/distaste for Esther is completely reasonable, since the younger girl really is pretty useless, but I loved watching them come to understand and respect each other as the story went on. I rooted for both of them, as well as for their cause, though I knew the story couldn't possibly have a picture-perfect happy ending.

I wouldn't recommend Resistance for very young readers, just because the vast majority of the characters in this book either die or expect themselves to die at any moment (and the climax, which is masterfully done by the way, is set in the Warsaw Ghetto during a doomed revolt). There's no bad language or graphic descriptions of the gruesome scenes Chava encounters, though, so as far as books about Polish Jews during WWII goes, this is about as "clean" as it's going to get.

I'm sure it's no surprise when I say that I highly recommend Resistance. I try to always list pros and cons in my reviews, but I literally don't have any cons for this one. It's a wonderfully well-written book, and it gives proper due to the incredible men and women who fought for their people. I hope many children read Resistance and learn the story of these heroes.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

The Button War by Avi, 2018

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Renowned, award-winning author Avi pens a stark, unflinching tale of ordinary boys living in wartime as tensions — and desperations — mount among them.

Twelve-year-old Patryk knows little of the world beyond his tiny Polish village; the Russians have occupied the land for as long as anyone can remember, but otherwise life is unremarkable. Patryk and his friends entertain themselves by coming up with dares — some more harmful than others — until the Germans drop a bomb on the schoolhouse and the Great War comes crashing in. As control of the village falls from one nation to another, Jurek, the ringleader of these friends, devises the best dare yet: whichever boy steals the finest military button will be king. But as sneaking buttons from uniforms hanging to dry progresses to looting the bodies of dead soldiers — and as Jurek’s obsession with being king escalates — Patryk begins to wonder whether their “button war” is still just a game. When devastation reaches their doorstep, the lines between the button war and the real war blur, especially for the increasingly callous Jurek. Master of historical fiction Avi delivers a fierce account of the boys of one war-torn village who are determined to prove themselves with a simple dare that spins disastrously out of control.

(240 pages)

I'll be perfectly honest: I had very, very high expectations for The Button War because it's written by Avi. Most people love Avi for The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, but the truth is that I barely even remember that book; no, the reason I had high hopes for this new Avi read was because I was obsessed with his The Secret School when I was little. It grabbed my fascination in a big way, with its tale of children banding together to trick their parents into letting them continue to get an education after their teacher leaves.

I suppose that in some ways The Button War is the opposite of The Secret School. Where the earlier book showed children banding together to improve themselves, devoting themselves to their studies and staying relatively well-behaved, The Button War tells the story of a band of school-aged boys who, when left to their own devices, egg each other on to do reckless, stupid things–like the titular competition to steal the brightest, fanciest buttons from the uniforms of the various armies invading their small town.

It's frankly not very fun to read, because I spent most of the book wanting to reach out and smack Jurek–and the other boys for caring enough about his words to put themselves and their families in danger like that. It's one thing to read about people putting themselves in danger during WWII to save Jews from the Holocaust, but watching Patryk's band of friends get in danger for the sake of such a stupid game was just painful. I suppose it's a reflection of the violence they've grown up around, that they've become so desensitized to it and reckless that they would behave in this way, but I didn't really enjoy it.

I think The Button War is a pretty good book, but I for one just found it so frustrating that I didn't get much out of it. You might like it more than I did, though.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

The Girl Who Wouldn't Die by Randall Platt, 2017

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It’s 1939 in Poland, and Arab knows that standing up for anyone—especially her Jewish family—only paints a target on her back. So she plans to survive the Nazi occupation the way she always has: disguise herself as an Aryan boy, lead her street gang, and sell whatever she can steal.

But though Arab starts the war with the one goal of staying alive, others have different ideas for her. When a stranger asks for her help with a covert rescue mission, Arab has to make a choice. Trying to be a hero is a surefire way to get killed. But if she doesn’t do it, who will?

Hard-hitting and unforgettable, The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die is a story about survival, the necessity of resistance, and the hope that can be found when the world is at its darkest.

(304 pages)

Oof, this book is gritty. And I don't necessarily say that because it has violence (though it definitely does!), I've read books that beat The Girl Who Wouldn't Die when it comes to straight up bloodshed. No, it's super gritty because it's so dang dark. Arab is a street rat in Warsaw, Poland during the German bombings and then the occupation, eking out a living for herself and a band of children made up mostly of war orphans. As we all know, horrible things happened in Poland during WWII–especially to the Jews. Every turn of the page seems to offer some new twist in Arab's story, and it's usually a bad one.

To be honest, I really couldn't get a feel for Arab's character. She was this really cutthroat, merciless street rat who . . . came from a wealthy Jewish family and loved children? What? I still don't really understand why she felt forced into a life of crime on the streets while her family was literally down the street–oh, wait, unless she was saving her neck by distancing herself from Judaism. I suppose that makes sense. But her father literally bought a gravestone and pretended to bury Arab just because she got caught robbing a jewelry store. I can understand him being really upset about her crimes, of course, but completely abandoning his daughter? Why? I just can't comprehend it.

Honestly, though, that's the main flaw in the story for me: I can't understand Arab or her family. Other than that, The Girl Who Wouldn't Die was a very gripping and intense read that was gritty and dark but also managed to focus on the selflessness of a few individuals focused on salvaging all the good they could from a bad situation. It's a little more vulgar than I would like in some parts, especially when it comes to language (the f-word is used sporadically). Because Arab disguises herself as a boy, she's accused of being lesbian a few times. There are also many deaths throughout the book, some described in a passing manner and others in gruesome detail.

I don't usually like books that have bad language or detailed violence in them, but I occasionally make an exception for a WWII book that uses them for the purpose of portraying such a terrible time in the past. This is the case with The Girl Who Wouldn't Die, so while I wouldn't say that I enjoyed the book, I will definitely say that it was a good book for me to read. If you've read it, let us know in the comments what you think!

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

That Burning Summer by Lydia Syson, 2017

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It’s July 1940 on the south coast of England. A plane crash-lands in the marsh, and sixteen-year-old Peggy finds its broken pilot—a young Polish airman named Henryk. Afraid and unwilling to return to the fight, Henryk needs a place to hide, and Peggy helps him find his way to a remote, abandoned church.

Meanwhile, Peggy’s eleven-year-old brother Ernest is doing his best to try to understand the war happening around him. He’s reading all the pamphlets—he knows all the rules, he knows exactly what to do in every situation. He’s prepared, but not for Peggy’s hidden pilot.

Told in alternating points of view, this is a beautifully written story about growing up in wartime and finding the difference between following the rules and following your heart.

(298 pages)

I've read a huge amount of WWII books over the past few years, so I've gotten rather picky about them. No, not exactly picky–not bored, either–just really eager to read books that approach the war from unique angles. I don't grow sick of reading about, say, Jews in hiding, but I do like to learn something new from the books I read rather than always focusing on the same (albeit terrible) things.

All that to say . . . I thought That Burning Summer stands out, but isn't incredibly unique. I've never read a book about a Polish airman before, and the details about his past ordeal are absolutely fascinating and horrifying, but the whole idea of someone harboring a fallen pilot in rural England was already covered wonderfully in Dan Smith's My Friend the Enemy. I've read a lot of books that included details about the paranoia the Brits felt about an imminent German invasion, so those details also weren't novel to me, but I did appreciate seeing them carried to the level of almost Cold War-era paranoia–I hadn't realized just how much "doom and gloom" many average Brits felt about the war.

Moving on to analyzing the book as a novel, though, I have to point out that everyone (hopefully!) knows going in that the British isles were never invaded during WWII. This takes a lot of tension out of the read for us, because we never seriously worry about this the way Ernest does. Watching him obsess over the impending invasion does give us an insight into his personality, though, so it does serve some purpose.

To be honest, I enjoyed reading That Burning Summer but I didn't absolutely fall in love with it. I liked the different components of the story–learning about Henryk's past, the paranoia in town, Ernest's feelings of inadequacy, the whole storyline about their father that leaks out as the story goes on (and that gave me more new historical perspective!), etc.–but I also felt like many of them could have been fleshed out more. And the ending is fairly abrupt, jumping forward several years and then ending rather suddenly. I would have liked more detail about what had gone on between everyone in the interim years.

Overall, though, this was a pretty good read. If you're interested in it, then by all means do check it out!

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review, and this post includes Amazon affiliate links.